Greece budget deficits miss bailout targets

Public sector employees carry a banner, reading: "No Layoffs," as they demonstrate outside the Greek Parliament last month.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Greek cabinet announced late Sunday that it adopted a draft budget for 2012, but the debt-ridden nation will miss key deficit targets for this year and next.

According to this preliminary budget, Greece's budget deficit will be 18.69 billion euros, or 8.5% of gross domestic product, in 2011. Greece had originally agreed to a deficit of 17.1 billion euros, or 7.8% of GDP, with the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and the European Central Bank.

That group, commonly referred to as the troika, has been in discussions over the past few weeks about whether or not to provide Greece with the next round of funding as part of a previously agreed to bailout.

"We are forced to take decisions much faster than we would wish," said Prime Minister George Papandreou in an opening address to the cabinet, "due to the enormous deficit figure. That then creates recessionary problems."

Papandreou said that Greece plans to stick to every detail of its bailout agreement, however unpopular.

As part of the budget, Greece said it agreed to 6.6 billion euros more in deficit cutting measures for this year and 2012.

However, the cabinet also said that the budget deficit in 2012 was likely to be 6.8% of GDP, higher than the troika's target of 6.5%.

CNN's John Psaropoulos, Christine Theodorou, Sarah Aarthun and Per Nyberg contributed to this report.